Cruising as a Family – Finding the Deal
In 2018, we paid off our last debt outside of the mortgage, our home equity line of credit, and decided we would do a little something to celebrate during Christmas. I happen to stumble upon a 14-day cruise that started as a crazy dream until we quickly realized it was doable.
It would be the first time we vacation during Christmas to a destination that didn’t involve family and we weren’t quite sure how it would go. Well, at around day 7, we made the decision, this would be our new Christmas tradition.
No big gifts and plastic stuff for us. From now one, we would take a trip for Christmas!
We thought we would cruise at least every other year but the pandemic quickly changed those plans. Fast forward to 2022…
The Cruise
Typically this is one of the most expensive times of year to do anything so it takes a bit of persistence to still find the good deals.
During the middle of another vacation, I stumbled across an amazing deal on a Christmas cruise. All 4 of us in a balcony room for 7 days just under $2,200…we’ll take it! So how did we do it?
Holland America, a traditionally more mature cruise line, had a Kids Sail Free promotion where kids under 18 that were the 3rd and 4th guests in a room only had to pay taxes and gratuities. Typically these deals exclude holidays however not this one. We actually had our choice of ships, as the same deal was happening on the Eurodam and the Rotterdam and the left on the same day from the same port.
With a $2 deposit, it was a sign that we would be returning to cruising…finally!
Budget for the base cruise: $2,135
Now there were several things we had to take into consideration.
To Have It All or To Not Have It All
We had to make a decision on if we wanted to add in the all inclusive experience with a drink package, wifi, specialty dinner, gratuities and excursion credit or go a la carte. Since we always are after the best deal, we ran the numbers based on our cruising habits and made a decision that Have It All was not for us.
We decided to add on the Quench drink package for all 4 of us (It’s Christmas!), Wi-Fi for 1 device and of course we had to pay gratuities. You can check out the full Have It All Pricing Breakdown to see how the two compared.
Budget for the extras: Gratuities – $434, Drink Packages & WIFI – $703
How will we get to Port Canaveral?
Our next hurdle would be transportation to Fort Lauderdale. Flights were still pretty expensive to go anywhere but that didn’t stop us from trying. With all of the low cost airlines competing for business, it does drive some of the national players down from time to time.
We were able to score this way with a roundtrip flight into West Palm Beach, which isn’t too far from Fort Lauderdale. There is a commuter train that runs between the two that we knew we could catch to go to the port and then head back down after the cruise. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.
What we didn’t bank on is American Airlines changing our flight about 2 months later. One thing you should know is if the airline changes your flight, you have the right to request a different flight at no cost. This allowed us to select a flight into Fort Lauderdale the day before the cruise putting us closer to the port. Perfect! We still had to make it to West Palm Beach after the cruise and we were okay with that!
Budget for airline tickets and transportation to and from the port: $400
Where to stay near the cruise port?
Coming in the night before, we would need a decent hotel for one night. We wanted a hotel close enough to the port that we wouldn’t spend an arm & a leg on an Uber to the dock as well as one that served free breakfast to reduce our food costs, knowing that we would be on the ship in time to catch lunch in the dining room.
We had bonus points with Marriott so we started there. We were finally able to find a Springhill that had a free shuttle from the airport to the hotel and served free breakfast. Once we were there, we asked about a shuttle to the cruise port but they were charging $50 per person. We decided to grab an Uber.
Coming back after the cruise, our flight out was in West Palm Beach. Initially we were going to take the high speed train from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach. This changed once we factored in the cost of the Uber to the train station, the train tickets and the Uber from the train station. We found it cheaper to take an Uber from the port directly to the airport.
Budget for hotel and transportation to and from the port: $175 + $110
Total Budget
With lots of planning, all in we came out on top. I’ll throw in an extra $500 that we spent on gifts for our room steward, tours on the islands and shopping. We spent a total of $3,754 for the week or about $935 per person on everything we wanted to do. When you take the amount that we would spend on Christmas gifts, Christmas dinners (including the pre- and post-Christmas parties that we would miss) and what we would spend on a vacation, we came in under budget. Not only did we stay within the budget, we also had a fun and relaxing Christmas that provides an experience that will last a lifetime.
